He's got a neck like a turkey, I think,
So small, so easy to wrap fingers around to choke.
Daddy always said to have an escape plan,
I just thought mine would be a door.

I could wax poetic, like I wax my body,
I could wax poetic and rip away everything
Until I'm left with the bare skin naked ugliness
Of this man with a neck like a turkey.

Momma was raised on the Devil's farm and she knows ugly.
She always said that turkeys were mean, proud things,
Mean with beady little false Thanksgiving eyes,
And he's got the neck of a turkey.

And I suppose this is his revenge after a life spent as the meal
And It's my turn to be the prey, and it isn't beautiful,
I've waxed away the poetry and now it's just us,
And it's almost funny.

He's hunting, and I know because he said so,
Feathers fanned out, Turkey playing Peacock cocky.
Daddy always said to have an escape plan,
I just thought mine would be a door.

He's got a neck like a turkey, I think,
So small, so easy to wrap fingers around to choke.
And it isn't beautiful and it isn't poetry,
I waxed it all away, and it's almost funny.

My body is like an ark,

Swaying in tandem to the devil's music:

Satanic, secular, lustful,

Arms raised and face towards

The cracked ceiling plaster,

Shrouded in artificial light

like a discount martyr.

I'm addicted to your madness

I'm addicted to your prayers

I'm addicted to the envy in your voice,

The knives of iron in your tongue.

Take me apart, deconstruct me,

Consume me in the eternity of

Your boundless lies,

Your gluttonous mass that oozes

With false promises, born of

False belief, false idols, false pride

Yes, and I, the false martyr,

And you, the false prophet,

And we, the wrathful,

We, who are consumed by that

Which we have consumed

Until nothing remains but

The dust from which we came,

Sloth and tired,

Groaning wearily into the four winds

As we are dispersed between them

Till nothing is left but the irony

Of our own greed

But yet,

Like an ark, I sway even still,

My prayers to your deaf ears.

He always thought his heart was too delicate;
It was transparent, glassine, a window pane
Framed in soft petals and tears made from rain.

He lived in fear that it would shatter, unfit
For the world he was unapologetically thrown in
Amongst the chaotic, massive, earthly din

That spelled him into singular being, all alone,
A creature woven in fear and inaction
That once dared to chance interaction.

The outcome of this he couldn't have known,
For the true reason his heart was undone
Wasn't the splintering of glass or ambition.

It wasn't until he collected each every part
He saw what remained for what it truly is:
Only disassembled and altogether his.

Mechanical, but still, no less of a heart,
All it suffered was a little rust
And side effects of too much lust.

You are here* the words on the map read,
And they must be right, you tell yourself they must be right,
Because if they aren't,
Then you aren't anywhere.

Your eyes reflect into mine and then back into yours,
And all you see is swirling fear as you wonder,
Wonder what you'll find.
Wonder what you're searching for.

You are here the words on the map read,
The words on the map show a red dot,
But you aren't a red dot.
There must be some mistake.

In the back of your mind, you wonder,
Wonder how a body can see stars in your eyes
If they blot out the sky peering in.
A solar eclipse of the soul.

You meet my eyes again and wonder,
Wonder how we got here,
Wonder if we're really here
Simply because the map says we are.

Your eyes reflect mine and mine reflect yours
And if someone were to take a picture,
Our eyes would shine red,
Red like the dots on the map.

Our eyes do not reflect the stars and
They do not reflect our souls,
They are anchors between us, you and I,
They remind us.

Remind us we are here

And we are alive.

Oranges and pink cocktail explosions
Stain your eyes so bright,
Reflecting your hopes for tomorrow
And dreams for tonight.

You and I, we make our own stars
For those we could not reach,
And they blossom upon themselves
Towards heavens they cannot breech.

And though they cease, ever-fleeting
And are darkness in the end,
For a moment light our paths;
Our illuminating friends.

You see, this is our mayfly moment,
This, our human right.
These are the short lives of fireworks
Where darkness becomes light.

.
1. It's time to retreat
    To call off the war, to turn in the trumpets,
    To shut off our hearing aids to those who are bullet-riddled with Ritalin.

2. Leave passion at the door
    The coat rack is missing, but that's what people are for,
    Push them back into the closets with your woolen wares and see.

3. Check in your soul with the desk clerk
    The bellhop promises to bring it up soon, but the elevator is out of order.
    His trolly's wheels were stolen and the stairs are still on fire.

    Sorry.
    No refunds.

4. Lock all the doors and tip your cows
    You're too tipsy for another round of room service anyways and the
    police are planning a raid.
    Tell the too young girls with the too old eyes the time has come to go and
    stitch your innocence back on.

5. Check your bedstand for a bible and a razor
    Ignore the ***** stains; the key to salvation was paid in sin.
    Put yourself on a pension plan because I hear the devil's running a good
    racket.

    Sorry.
    No refunds.

6. Trash this place on Yelp. Trash this place in person.
    The devil is hiding in the woodwork and there's a people zoo of women
    dancing on the yellowed wallpaper.
    The carpet smells like Daddy's cigarettes and Mommy's drunken spit-up.

7. w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶e̶s̶s̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶r̶r̶o̶r̶
    What a proud song:
    Here's to the the nihilists, here's to the named,
    Here's a vague attempt to mark the world in meaning.

8. Break the mirror instead

Sorry.
No refunds.

But they offer complimentary mints.

Three times, your grimy nails click across this table, miming funerary chimes,
            Three times, you began, according to plan, clicking the number of man and a second,

A second more and you might have reached this poor core of this sore heart of mine,
            But a second less meant one yes less than a first caress.

And here, we're putting shells to our ears, revering hidden purpose in our own austere inventions
            The Beasts' beauty increased with every delicious warning from the now deceased sacrilegious priests.

A gross of Gods toast to the ghosts of their creations, morose men and mavericks that left their posts
            And a hundred bones creak from the sound of their moans, because they've reached their completion of the known.

That's how many times the heart beats in a minute, we admit, playing hard to get,
            And that means something, we insist in our in-betweens behind the scenes.

Yes,
            That means something.